


a hopeless embrace

by scribbleddreaming



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M, angsty angst, who doesn't get inspired by the wesley/illyria dynamic in angel for buckysteve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-03
Updated: 2014-05-03
Packaged: 2018-01-21 19:40:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1561727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribbleddreaming/pseuds/scribbleddreaming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He thought he had found Bucky again, a flicker of light quickly extinguished by a single, emotionless response (Who the hell is Bucky?), a brutal metal fist and four bullets. There was a little corner in his mind screaming, hoping, waiting, thinking that maybe it just took the right memory, the right smile, the right kiss to set everything back again.</p><p>But once you mix black and white, you will never get anything but grey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a hopeless embrace

**Author's Note:**

> so i just decided to write something totally angsty because somehow i don't know what else to do. barely edited and just proofread once because i'm a lazy asshole, so if you find mistakes you're allowed to keep them. i've never written for these two before and it didn't come easily, so if you think they're out of character you're allowed to tell me, but this just naturally flowed out lol. like i said in the tags, i was inspired by the wesley/illyria dynamic in angel the series (one of the best dynamics in the whole buffyverse tbh) and thought it would fit with bucky and steve, too.

_„Would you like me to lie?“_  

Steve often thought back to that drawing lesson he had sneaked into in 1942, when he was still young _(you’re an old man now, trapped in a young man’s body)_ , a skinny, frail little boy whose fingers were always coated in charcoal. The teacher smiled patiently, as many of them did, her heels clacking over the old linoleum.

“One thing you need to remember: Once you mix black with white, you will never get anything but grey. You can mix in more white, but it will remain grey, no matter what you do.“

Steve had tried that with the watercolors Bucky had stolen for him from an art supplies store and he kept at it for a whole afternoon, trying to turn grey back into white, anything but that dull nothing of a color. When Bucky came in and saw all the sheets of grey swirls and asked what Steve was doing, he just laughed in confused mirth and stood behind the blond man, leaning in close until Steve could feel Bucky’s warm breath on the back of his neck, making him shiver. “Just like you, Steve, always trying to achieve the impossible.“

Steve knew he was naive to think that the world he grew up in was easier to understand, to separate, things had been difficult then, too - but Steve had known who he was, what he stood for, what he fought for. Things had been clear and good and right, and matters were worth sacrifices, even the ones that cut deep to the bone and turned his heart to ash. It was the first time, in that dark, desolate rubble of a bar that he lost his way, forgot why he was doing what he did.

Steve had sacrificed more than he ever believed he could have. He sacrificed his life, his future, everything that made him who he was _(Bucky keeping you right, keeping you sane, keeping you that kid from Brooklyn)_. He was stuck in a world he didn’t understand, where things made no sense and he was just lost in time, drowning and restless, trying so desperately to stay afloat, just to keep going. He fought and he scrapped and did all the things Captain America was supposed to do, but he had lost any sense of purpose and direction, lived from day to day, one foot in the past and one foot in the present.

 

He thought he had found Bucky again, a flicker of light quickly extinguished by a single, emotionless response _(Who the hell is Bucky?)_ , a brutal metal fist and four bullets. There was a little corner in his mind screaming, hoping, waiting, thinking that maybe it just took the right memory, the right smile, the right kiss to set everything back again.

But once you mix black and white, you will never get anything but grey.

Getting him back, this man who was not really Bucky but something far more different and foreign, someone who stared with dark, emotionless eyes and gripped until he cracked bones, felt like steering a plane into the cold ice all over, like a hand not reaching far enough.

Steve knew, he knew, he knew, _he knew_ , he told everyone who inquired with worried eyes that he did, this is Not Bucky, this is the Winter Soldier, a man wearing his best friend’s face like a mask, a man who will never be the man he knew _(the man you loved with all your being)_. Whoever he was, he was neither black nor white, he was the swirling greys Steve had drawn that afternoon in 1942, the ones he had tried so desperately to turn into anything but, always trying to achieve the impossible.

Steve could feel the loneliness and the despair clawing more and more at him, even more than right after he had woken up to discover himself in a different time with everyone he knew and loved gone. He avoided going out into the day, unless it was to run, and he ran, kept running, just hoping to out chase the ghosts of the past (he would always run in circles, trying to find his way back to the love he’d lost). He kept to himself, fielded calls and visits unless they were about the whereabouts of the Winter Soldier and it wasn’t healthy, he knew, and he thought back to the pamphlets he saw at Sam’s workplace, about depression and maybe that’s what this hopeless feeling is. He chased every single lead, though, any backwards corner of the world, even if it was just a whisper. As always, Steve was one step behind, never fast enough.

 

He came back to his empty apartment, feeling more dejected than ever, when he spotted a dark figure sitting in the shadows, watching him carefully as to gauge every single move he made. Steve stared, silently, too shocked to speak.

“Why are you following me?“ his voice betrayed no emotion.

Steve swallowed hard and could feel his heart beating too fast, threatening to jump out of his rib cage.

“You’re my best friend,“ he left the words _“my lover, everything“_ unsaid.

“I know. I remember,“ the soldier replied. “I remember that James Buchanan Barnes, Bucky for short, loved you.“

He said it clinically, like he was reading off statistics or one of the explanations at the Smithsonian _(but the Smithsonian never knew how much you really meant to each other, how your name sounded on his lips when he came)_ , not like this was some twisted declaration of love.

“You remember…“

“I am not him,“ the Soldier stared right at him through the darkness. „You know that.“

Steve felt his heart drop in his chest, of disappointment or elation, he could not tell. Somehow, this man who did not know him, whom he did not know, had seen right through him without even trying. The desperation that hounded him deep under his skin flared up, making Steve feel more weary of the world than he ever had before.

“Yet you keep looking for me. Why?“ the Soldier seemed honestly confused by that, as if he did not understand _(how could he, when he didn’t remember how your breath quickened whenever he just threw a glance at you)_ , as if that concept was just absolutely foreign to him.

Steve struggled for an answer that didn’t sound as pathetic and desolate as he felt, his eyes darting around the small living room and the only thing to hear were his labored breaths. He chuckled humorlessly.

“I have nothing else left.“

 

They looked at each other again and Steve felt like he could cry, could scream and beg the Winter Soldier to finish his mission, kill him and be done with it, so he doesn’t have to look at the stranger wearing the face he had drawn and memorized and adored his whole life.

“You’re in love with a dead man,“ the Winter Soldier said and Steve almost felt like he could hear some semblance of emotion inside that monotone voice, as if the man was asking him _Why?_

Steve smiled in pain. “Guess I am. What a sucker am I, right?“

The Winter Soldier stayed silent in the dark, looking at Steve, observing and trying to comprehend the man before him. Steve was just trying to see if there was any trace of Bucky left. He could not see anything.

“I’ve been watching you. You’re not exactly what I read about,“ the Soldier said with a slight snarl as he stood up and slowly walked across the room, never taking his eyes off the other man. “The paragon of hope.“

Steve felt naked and vulnerable with those eyes on him, crystal blue eyes that saw nothing and everything, that seemed to fight with something themselves. He hated that, even though this man did not know him, he understood Steve, saw the despair hidden underneath.

“You were willing to die on that Helicarrier. I heard Captain America never gives up.“

Steve shrugged. “He doesn’t.“

“You are Captain America.“

“I’m just a man.“

Mere feet separated them now and the Winter Soldier kept trying to decipher him _(never had to, could read you like an open book)_.

“You’ve been looking for me even though you know I will never be the man you loved. What did you think would happen once you found me?“

Steve had no answer because he had never thought that far. He just knew that, even getting beaten and shot at by a man resembling Bucky was better than nothing at all and he realized how utterly pitiful that would sound to anyone believing in Captain America; but he was Steve Rogers, just a stupid, foolish, naive little kid from Brooklyn, foolish and naive and desperate, just grasping for a hand to catch him before he falls.

The Winter Soldier breathed in heavily. “I read up on James Buchanan Barnes, watched the videos, heard the testimonials. I remember bits, but not much. I will never be him.“

Steve felt the cold in his veins, a cold that never went away from the 70 years spent in ice and he imagines that the man before him might feel it, too, for they were two sides of the same coin.

The Soldier seemed to contemplate, weighing a decision in his mind.

“I will never be Bucky Barnes… but I could pretend.“

 

Time seemed to stop for a second and Steve just looked at him in disbelief.

“No, you couldn’t. Don’t even try, don’t even…“ Steve started pacing up and down the floor of his living room, the floor boards creaking under his weight.

“You want me,“ the Soldier replied calmly. “I look like him. And if you’d like me to, I could emulate him for you.“

Steve shook his head violently, trying to chase away the voices whispering that he should do it, _cling to the only thing you have left._

“You think you can know what he was like by reading about him? You don’t have the slightest idea what he was like!,“ Steve’s voice was getting louder and inside, he warred with himself. There was a low pull in his stomach when he thought about agreeing, but he shouldn’t and he knew that.

 

Suddenly, the Winter Soldier, always stoic and stiff, ready to attack, relaxed his shoulders and stood with his legs a bit farther apart. A cocky smirk started spreading on his face and there was a twinkle in his eyes. He combed his fingers through his long, lanky hair. “Oh, come on, Steve, don’t be like that,“ he said cheekily, his voice completely transformed; no more of the freezing, deathly chill in his voice, it was now brimming with warmth and affection, a Brooklyn accent tinging the words. He snaked his human hand around Steve’s neck and let his fingers softly caress the skin. He came even closer. “You know I hate it when you sulk.“

Bu- The Soldier pulled Steve in and languidly kissed him and Steve let out a little whimper. It had been over 70 years since he had last felt those lips on his and it felt like coming home, like thawing out of ice and for a few moments he let himself forget that this wasn’t Bucky, that Bucky was dead, and allowed the tongue trying to slip into his mouth. Steve felt like bursting, he was alive once more under those fingertips and that mouth, breathing in the air that Bucky breathed, as he had always done before.

 

Steve opened his eyes and looked and it was so easy to fool himself. He abruptly pushed the Soldier away who immediately went back into fighting stance, his eyes dead again.

“Why are you doing this?“ Steve asked and he was fighting the urge to pounce on the Soldier, consume him with hair and teeth, take everything he can.

“You were frozen for 70 years. Do you still feel the cold? Settled in your bones, deep inside of you? And no matter what you do, you can’t stop feeling like you’re going to turn into ice any minute?“

Steve wanted to scream. What did it say about him that the only person that could understand him is a cold, ruthless assassin?

“I remember almost nothing of being James Buchanan Barnes, but I remember that he loved you. I remember that you made him feel warm. I want to know what that is like. You’re the only one who can show that to me.“

Steve laughed bitterly. “How? You just said it, I made Bucky feel warm, back in a time where I hadn’t been frozen for 70 years. You’re not Bucky, and I’m not the Steve from your memories anymore.“

Steve turned away, not daring to keep looking at him, because he could feel himself growing weak, wanting it so much, wanting to feel his fingertips pressing into his skin, to leave his mark on the man he loved, even if he wasn’t there anymore.

“I felt the warmth just now,“ Steve heard in a tiny whisper.

Steve bit his lip. He couldn’t do this, shouldn’t, he should be stronger than this.

“You don’t love me,“ is all Steve could say, because he knows it’s the truth.

“Bucky Barnes did.“

Steve scoffs. “I think we’ve firmly established that you are not him.“

The Soldier was silent for a moment.

“Would you like me to lie?“

Steve turned around and faced the Winter Soldier, whose stance had relaxed just the tiniest bit, his face still unreadable. Steve was so lonely and so tired; he had given up on the Helicarrier, not just because he could not bear to kill the man who had Bucky Barnes’ face, but also because, deep down, he knew anything would be better than this; better than constantly questioning his every move and thought, the world he lived in, the people he interacted with. The white had mixed with the black and Steve was so tired of trying to turn grey into anything else. He wanted to dissolve in the grey swirls and stay, for a while, forever, he knew it was wrong, but for once, he just didn’t care.

“Please.“ 

As if someone had flipped a switch, the Winter Soldier turned into Bucky again, seamlessly moving, gliding towards Steve with a confident grin on his face and grabbing hungrily. They kissed and clashed and moaned into each other, moving as one towards the bed and Bucky pushed him down on it like he used to in their shabby little apartment in Brooklyn, with the leaky faucets that always dripped water and the doors off their hinges. Over 70 years later and Steve could pretend they were back in that shit hole, them against the rest of the world, when nothing could ever tear them apart. He ignored how much bigger he was, how long and unkept Bucky’s hair was and the cold metal of his left arm, because Bucky was here, with him, and he could cry because he hadn’t felt this good since before that day on the train in Austria.

 

“Fuck, Steve, I missed you“, Bucky breathed into his neck and Steve smiled. He didn’t care it was a lie, hearing the words, feeling them was all he wanted. “I missed you, too, Buck.“

Nothing made sense to him anymore, but maybe it didn’t need to. Maybe all he needed was a comfortable lie to get through.

 

Steve looked out of the window into the grey, starless night.


End file.
